PN 
85 
B81c 


ITICISM 

C.  BROWNELL 


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THC  ^^oo^  9f 


■'^^•=^^" 


^ 


EB ■ cm 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Blake  R.  Nevius 


CRITICISM 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

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CRITICISM 


BY 

W.  C.  BROWNELL 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1914 


Copyright,  19 14,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  September,  1914 


p9 


TO   BRANDER   MATTHEWS 


CRITICISM 
I 

FIELD  AND  FUNCTION 

CRITICISM  itself  is  much  criti- 
cized,—  which  logically  establishes 
its  title.  No  form  of  mental  activity  is 
commoner,  and,  where  the  practice  of 
anything  is  all  but  universal,  protest 
against  it  is  as  idle  as  apology  for  it 
should  be  superfluous.  The  essentially 
critical  character  of  formularies  alleging 
the  inferiority  to  books  of  the  books 
about  books  that  Lamb  preferred,  find- 
ing the  genesis  of  criticism  in  creative 
failure,  and  so  on,  should  of  itself  dem- 
onstrate that  whatever  objection  may 
be  made  to  it  in  practice  there  can  be 
none  in  theory.  In  which  case  the  only 
I 


CRITICISM 

sensible  view  is  that  its  practice  should 
be  perfected  rather  than  abandoned. 
However,  it  is  probably  only  in  —  may 
one  say?  —  'uncritical  circles,'  notori- 
ously as  skeptical  about  logic  as  about 
criticism,  that  it  encounters  this  fun- 
damental,  censure.  'Nobody  here,' 
Lord  Morley  remarked,  addressing  the 
English  Association,  'will  undervalue 
criticism  or  fall  into  the  gross  blunder 
of  regarding  it  as  a  mere  parasite  of 
creative  work.'  And,  indeed,  it  would 
be  slighting  just  proportion  and  intel- 
lectual decorum  to  lay  any  particular 
stress  on  the  aspersions  of  the  sprightly 
sciolists  of  the  studios,  such  as,  for  ex- 
ample, the  late  Mr.  Whistler,  and  of 
brilliant  literary  adventurers,  such  as, 
for  another  instance,  the  late  Lord 
Beaconsfield. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  these  two  rather 
celebrated  disparagers  of  criticism  were 
greatly  indebted  to  the  critical  faculty. 


FIELD  AND   FUNCTION 

very  marked  in  each  of  them.  It  is 
now  becoming  quite  generally  appreci- 
ated, I  imagine,  —  thanks  to  criticism, 
—  that  Degas's  admonition  to  Whis- 
tler about  his  conduct  cheapening  his 
talent,  which  every  one  will  remem- 
ber, embodied  a  slight  misconception. 
Whistler's  achievements  in  painting, 
however  incontestable  their  merits, 
would  certainly  have  enjoyed  less  of 
the  vogue  he  so  greatly  prized  had  his 
prescription  that  work  should  be  're- 
ceived in  silence*  been  followed  in  his 
own  case  by  himself.  And  it  was  cer- 
tainly the  critical  rather  than  the  cre- 
ative element  in  Disraeli's  more  serious 
substance  that  gave  it  the  interest  it 
had  for  his  contemporaries,  and  has 
now  altogether  lost. 

More    worth    while    recalling    than 

Disraeli's  inconsistency,  however,  is  the 

fact  that  in  plagiarizing  he  distorted 

Coleridge's  remark,  substituting  *crit- 

3 


CRITICISM 

ics*  for  *  reviewers'  as  those  who  had 
failed  in  creative  fields.  The  substitu- 
tion is  venial  in  so  far  as  in  the  En- 
gland of  that  day  the  critics  were  the 
reviewers.  But  this  is  what  is  espe- 
cially noteworthy  in  considering  the 
whole  subject :  namely,  that  in  England, 
as  with  ourselves,  the  art  of  criticism  is 
so  largely  the  business  of  reviewing  as 
to  make  the  two,  in  popular  estimation 
at  least,  interconvertible  terms.  They 
order  the  matter  differently  in  France. 
Every  one  must  have  been  struck  at 
first  by  the  comparative  slightness  of 
the  reviewing  in  French  journalism. 
One's  impression  at  first  is  that  they 
take  the  business  much  less  seriously 
than  one  would  expect  in  a  country 
with  such  an  active  interest  in  art  and 
letters.  The  papers,  even  the  reviews, 
concern  themselves  with  the  current 
product  chiefly  in  the  *  notice'  or  the 
compte  rendu,  which  aims  merely  to 
4 


FIELD  AND   FUNCTION 

inform  the  reader  as  to  the  contents  of 
the  book  or  the  contributions  to  the 
exposition,  whatever  it  may  be,  with 
but  a  meagre  addition  of  comment 
either  courteous  or  curt.  The  current 
art  criticism  even  of  Gautier,  even  of 
Diderot  for  that  matter,  is  largely  de- 
scriptive. In  the  literary  revues  what 
we  should  call  the  reviewing  is  apt  to 
be  consigned  to  a  few  back  pages  of 
running  chroniquey  or  a  supplementary 
leaflet. 

Of  course  one  explanation  is  that  the 
French  public  reads  and  sees  for  itself 
too  generally  to  need  or  savor  extensive 
treatment  of  the  essentially  undiffer- 
entiated. The  practice  of  reviewing 
scrupulously  all  the  output  of  the  novel 
factories,  exemplified  by  such  period- 
icals as  even  the  admirable  Athenceum, 
would  seem  singular  to  it.  But  with 
us,  even  when  the  literature  reviewed 
is  eminent  and  serious,  it  is  estimated, 
5 


CRITICISM 

when  it  is  reviewed  with  competence, 
by  the  anonymous  expert,  who  con- 
fines himself  to  the  matter  in  hand  and 
dehvers  a  kind  of  bench  decision  in  a 
circumscribed  case.  And  in  France  this 
is  left  to  subsequent  books  or  more 
general  articles,  with  the  result  of  re- 
leasing the  critic  for  more  personal 
work  of  larger  scope.  Hence,  there  are 
a  score  of  French  critics  of  personal 
quality  for  one  English  or  American. 
Even  current  criticism  becomes  a  prov- 
ince of  literature  instead  of  being  a 
department  of  routine.  Our  own  cur- 
rent criticism,  anonymous  or  other, 
is,  I  need  not  say,  largely  of  this  rou- 
tine character,  when  it  has  character, 
varied  by  the  specific  expert  decision 
in  a  very  few  quarters,  and  only  occa- 
sionally by  a  magazine  article  de  fond 
of  a  real  synthetic  value.  This  last 
I  should  myself  like  to  see  the  Acad- 
emy, whose  function  must  be  mainly 


FIELD  AND   FUNCTION 

critical,  encourage  by  every  means  open 
to  it,  by  way  of  giving  more  standing 
to  our  criticism,  which  is  what  I  think 
it  needs  first  of  all. 

For  the  antipathy  to  criticism  I  im- 
agine springs  largely  from  confound- 
ing it  with  the  reviewing  —  which  I 
do  not  desire  to  depreciate,  but  to 
distinguish  from  criticism  of  a  more 
personal  order  and  a  more  permanent 
appeal.  The  tradition  of  English  re- 
viewing is  impressive,  and  it  is  natural 
that  Coleridge  should  have  spoken  of 
reviewers  as  a  class,  and  that  Mr. 
Birrell  should  have  them  exclusively 
in  mind  in  defining  the  traits  of  the 
ideal  critic.  And  we  ourselves  are  not 
without  journals  which  review  with 
obvious  resources  of  scholarship  and 
skill,  and  deliver  judgments  with  the 
tone,  if  not  always  with  the  effect,  of 
finality.  But  of  course,  taking  the 
country  as  a  whole,  reviewing  is  the 
7 


CRITICISM 

least  serious  concern  of  the  journalism 
that  seems  to  take  so  many  things 
lightly.  And  it  is  this  reviewing  that 
I  fancy  the  authors  and  artists  have  in 
mind  when  they  disparage  criticism. 
They  disparage  it  in  the  main,  how- 
ever, as  insufficiently  expert,  but  though 
I  dare  say  this  is  often  just,  the  objec- 
tion to  it  which  is  apparently  not  con- 
sidered, but  which  I  should  think  even 
more  considerable,  is  its  tendency  to 
monopolize  the  critical  field  and  estab- 
lish this  very  ideal  of  specific  expert- 
ness,  which  its  practice  so  frequently 
fails  to  realize,  as  the  ideal  of  criticism 
in  general.  This  involves,  I  think,  a 
restricted  view  of  the  true  critic's  field, 
and  an  erroneous  view  of  his  function. 
Virtually  it  confines  his  own  field  to 
that  of  the  practice  he  criticizes;  and 
his  function  to  that  of  estimating  any 
practice  with  reference  to  its  technical 

standards.     In  a  word,  expert  criticism 
8 


FIELD  AND   FUNCTION 

is  necessarily  technical  criticism,  and, 
not  illogically,  those  whose  ideal  it  is 
insist  that  the  practitioner  himself  is 
the  only  proper  critic  of  his  order  of 
practice. 

This  was  eminently  the  view  of  the 
late  Russell  Sturgis,  who  had  an  inex- 
haustible interest  in  technic  of  all  kinds 
and  maintained  stoutly  that  only  art- 
ists should  write  about  art.  And 
though  his  own  practice  negatived  his 
principle  so  far  as  painting  and  sculp- 
ture are  concerned,  that  was  perhaps 
because  the  painters  and  sculptors  were 
themselves  so  remiss  in  lending  a  hand 
to  the  work  he  deemed  it  important  to 
have  done.  They  were  surely  excus- 
able, in  many  cases,  since  they  could 
allege  preoccupation  with  what  they 
could  do  even  better,  in  proportion  as 
they  were  either  satisfactorily  good  at 
it  or  successful  with  it.  Sturgis's  the- 
ory was  that  art  should  be  interpreted 
9 


CRITICISM 

from  the  artist's  point  of  view,  assum- 
ing of  course  the  existence  of  such  a 
point  of  view.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
there  is  none,  and  when  it  is  sought 
what  is  found  is  either  an  artist's  point 
of  view,  which  is  personal  and  not  pro- 
fessional, or  else  it  is  that  of  every  one 
else  sufficiently  educated  in  the  results 
which  artists  could  hardly  have  pro- 
duced for  centuries  without,  sooner  or 
later,  at  least  betraying  what  it  is  their 
definite  aim  distinctly  to  express.  The 
esoteric  in  their  work  is  a  matter,  not 
of  art,  —  the  universal  language  in 
which  they  communicate,  —  but  of  sci- 
ence; it  does  not  reside  in  the  point  of 
view,  but  in  the  process. 

All  artistic  accomplishment  divides 
itself  naturally,  easily,  and  satisfacto- 
rily, however  loosely,  into  the  two  cate- 
gories, moral  and  material.  The  two 
certainly  overlap,  and  this  is  particu- 
larly true   of  the  plastic   arts,  whose 

lO 


FIELD  AND   FUNCTION 

peculiarity  —  or  whose  distinction,  if 
you  choose  —  is  to  appeal  to  the  senses 
as  well  as  to  the  mind.  A  certain  tech- 
nic  therefore  —  that  is  to  say,  the  sci- 
ence of  their  material  side  —  is  always 
to  be  borne  in  mind.  But  a  far  less 
elaborate  acquaintance  with  this  than 
is  vital  to  the  practitioner  is  ample  for 
the  critic,  who  may  in  fact  easily  have 
too  much  of  it  if  he  have  any  inclina- 
tion to  exploit  rather  than  to  subor- 
dinate it.  He  may  quite  conceivably 
profit  by  Arnold's  caution:  'To  handle 
these  matters  properly,  there  is  needed 
a  poise  so  perfect  that  the  least  over- 
weight in  any  direction  tends  to  destroy 
the  balance  .  .  .  even  erudition  may 
destroy  it.  Little  as  I  know  therefore, 
I  am  always  apprehensive,  in  dealing 
with  poetry,  lest  even  that  little  should 
[quoting  a  remark  by  the  Duke  of 
Wellington]  **  prove  too  much  for  my 

abilities."' 

II 


CRITICISM 

The  artist  who  exacts  more  technical 
expertness  from  the  critic  than  he  finds 
is  frequently  looking  in  criticism  for 
what  it  is  the  province  of  the  studio  to 
provide;  he  requires  of  it  the  educa- 
tional character  proper  to  the  class- 
room, or  the  qualifications  pertinent 
to  the  hanging  committee.  Now,  even 
confined  within  its  proper  limits,  this 
esoteric  criticism  suffers  from  its  in- 
herent concentration  on  technic.  Ar- 
tistic innovation  meets  nowhere  with 
such  illiberal  hostility  as  it  encounters 
in  its  own  hierarchy,  and  less  on  tem- 
peramental than  on  technical  grounds. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  painter  like  Bou- 
guereau  may  systematically  invert  the 
true  relations  of  conception  and  execu- 
tion, employing  the  most  insipid  con- 
ventionalities to  express  his  exquisite 
drawing,  and  remain  for  a  generation 
the  head  of  the  professional  corner  in 
a  school  edifice  where  the  critical  fac- 

12 


FIELD  AND  FUNCTION 

ulty  seems  sometimes  paralyzed  by  the 
technical  criterion.  And  of  course  in 
technical  circles  such  a  criterion  tends 
to  establish  itself.  Millet,  who  refused 
to  write  about  a  fellow  painter's  work 
for  the  precise  reason  that  he  was  a 
painter  himself  and  therefore  partial  to 
his  own  different  way  of  handling  the 
subject,  was  a  practitioner  of  excep- 
tional breadth  of  view,  and  would  per- 
haps have  agreed  with  Aristotle,  who, 
as  Montaigne  says,  'will  still  have  a 
hand  in  everything,'  and  who  asserts 
that  the  proper  judge  of  the  tiller  is 
not  the  carpenter  but  the  helmsman. 
Indeed,  'The  wearer  knows  where  the 
shoe  pinches'  is  as  sound  a  maxim  as 
*Ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam';  and  the  au- 
thority of  the  latter  itself  may  be  in- 
voked in  favor  of  leaving  criticism  to 
critics.  The  classics  of  aesthetic  criti- 
cism constitute  an  impressive  body  of 
literature,  which  has  been  of  immense 
13 


CRITICISM 

interpretative  service  to  art,  and  to 
which  the  only  practising  contributor  of 
signal  importance,  it  is  worth  bearing  in 
mind,  was  himself  a  litterateur  —  even  a 
novelist  and  a  poet.  Nor  does  it  seem 
singular  that,  as  a  rule  and  in  propor- 
tion to  his  seriousness,  the  practitioner 
should  be  engrossed  by  practice. 

It  is  true  that  we  have  in  America  — 
possibly  in  virtue  of  our  inevitable  ec- 
lecticism —  a  considerable  number  of 
practising  artists  who  also  write  distin- 
guished criticism.  But  to  ascribe  its 
excellence  to  their  technical  expertness, 
rather  than  to  their  critical  faculty  and 
literary  ability,  would  really  be  doing 
an  injustice  to  the  felicity  with  which 
they  subordinate  in  their  criticism  all 
technical  parade  beyond  that  which  is 
certainly  too  elementary  to  be  consid- 
ered esoteric.  Certainly  some  of  them 
would  be  indisposed  to  measure  work  by 
their  own  practice,  and  in  that  case  what 
14 


FIELD  AND   FUNCTION 

critical  title  does  this  practice  in  itself 
confer?  As  a  rule  indeed,  I  think,  they 
rather  help  than  hinder  the  contention 
that  criticism  is  a  special  province  of 
literature  with,  in  fact,  a  technic  of  its 
own  in  which  they  show  real  expert- 
ness,  instead  of  a  literary  adjunct  of 
the  special  art  with  which  it  is  vari- 
ously called  upon  to  concern  itself. 
And  in  this  special  province,  material 
data  are  far  less  considerable  than 
moral  —  with  which  latter,  accordingly, 
it  is  the  special  function  of  criticism  to 
deal.  Every  one  is  familiar  with  plastic 
works  of  a  perfection  that  all  the  tech- 
nical talk  in  the  world  would  not  ex- 
plain, as  no  amount  of  technical  ex- 
pertness  could  compass  it.  However 
young  the  artist  might  have  begun  to 
draw,  or  model,  or  design,  whatever 
masters  he  might  have  had,  however 
long  he  might  have  practised  his  art, 
whatever  his  skill,  native  or  acquired, 
15 


CRITICISM 

whatever  his  professional  expertness,  in 
a  word,  no  artist  could  have  achieved 
the  particular  result  in  question  without 
those  qualities  which  have  controlled 
the  result,  and  which  it  is  the  function  of 
criticism  to  signalize,  as  it  is  the  weak- 
ness of  expert  evaluation  to  neglect. 

Criticism,  thus,  may  not  inexactly 
be  described  as  the  statement  of  the 
concrete  in  terms  of  the  abstract.  It  is 
its  function  to  discern  and  characterize 
the  abstract  qualities  informing  the  con- 
crete expression  of  the  artist.  Every 
important  piece  of  literature,  as  every 
important  work  of  plastic  art,  is  the 
expression  of  a  personality,  and  it  is 
not  the  material  of  it,  but  the  mind  be- 
hind it,  that  invites  critical  interpreta- 
tion. Materially  speaking,  it  is  its  own 
interpretation.  The  concrete  absorbs 
the  constructive  artist  whose  endeavor 
is  to  give  substance  to  his  idea,  which 

until  expressed  is  an  abstraction.    The 
i6 


FIELD  AND   FUNCTION 

concern  of  criticism  is  to  measure  his 
success  by  the  correspondence  of  his 
expression  to  the  idea  it  suggests  and 
by  the  value  of  the  idea  itself.  The 
critic's  own  language,  therefore,  into 
which  he  is  to  translate  the  concrete 
work  he  is  considering,  is  the  language 
of  the  abstract;  and  as  in  translation 
what  is  needed  is  appreciation  of  the 
foreign  tongue  and  expertness  in  one's 
own,  it  is  this  language  that  it  behooves 
him  especially  to  cultivate. 

As  it  is  the  qualities  of  the  writer, 
painter,  sculptor,  and  not  the  proper- 
ties of  their  productions,  that  are  his 
central  concern,  as  his  function  is  to 
disengage  the  moral  value  from  its 
material  expression,  —  I  do  not  mean 
of  course  in  merely  major  matters, 
but  in  minutiae  as  well,  such  as  even 
the  lilt  of  a  verse  or  the  drawing  of  a 
wrist,  the  distinction  being  one  of  kind, 
not  of  rank,  —  qualities,  not  proper- 
17 


CRITICISM 

ties,  are  the  very  substance  and  not 
merely  the  subject  of  the  critic's  own 
expression.  The  true  objects  of  his 
contemplation  are  the  multifarious  ele- 
ments of  truth,  beauty,  goodness,  and 
their  approximations  and  antipodes, 
underlying  the  various  phenomena 
which  express  them,  rather  than  the 
laws  and  rules  peculiar  to  each  form  of 
phenomenal  expression;  which,  beyond 
acquiring  the  familiarity  needful  for 
adequate  appreciation,  he  may  leave 
to  the  professional  didacticism  of  each. 
And  in  thus  confining  itself  to  the  art 
and  eschewing  the  science  of  whatever 
forms  its  subject  —  mindful  mainly  of 
no  science,  indeed,  except  its  own  — 
criticism  is  enabled  to  extend  its  field 
while  restricting  its  function,  and  to 
form  a  distinct  province  of  literature, 
while  relinquishing  encroachments  upon 
the  territory  of  more  exclusively  con- 
structive art. 

i8 


FIELD   AND   FUNCTION 

Of  course  thus  individualizing  the 
field  and  the  function  of  criticism 
neither  predicates  universal  capacity 
in  nor  prescribes  universal  practice  to 
the  individual  critic,  who  however  will 
specialize  all  the  more  usefully  for 
realizing  that  both  his  field  and  his 
function  are  themselves  as  special  as 
his  faculty  is  universally  acknowledged 
to  be. 


19 


II 

EQUIPMENT 

THE  critic's  equipment  consequently 
should  be  at  least  commensurate 
with  the  field  implied  by  this  view 
of  his  function.  But  it  should  really 
even  exceed  it,  on  the  well-known  prin- 
ciple that  no  one  knows  his  subject  who 
knows  his  subject  alone.  And  this  im- 
plies for  criticism  the  possession  of  that 
cognate  culture  without  which  specific 
erudition  produces  a  rather  lean  result. 
If,  which  is  doubtful,  it  achieves  rec- 
titude, it  misses  richness.  The  mere 
function  of  examining  and  estimation 
can  hardly  be  correctly  conducted 
without  illumination  from  the  side- 
lights of  culture.  But  certainly  if  crit- 
icism  is  to   have   itself   any   opulence 

and  amplitude,  any  body  and  energy, 
20 


EQUIPMENT 

it  must  bring  to  its  specific  business  a 
supplementary  fund  of  its  own.  If  lit- 
erature —  or  art  as  well  for  that  mat- 
ter —  is  a  criticism  of  life,  criticism  in 
a  similar  sense  and  in  the  same  degree 
determines  the  relations  of  the  two, 
and  thus  needs  as  close  touch  with  life 
as  with  art  and  letters.  Thus,  what- 
ever the  subject,  the  critical  equipment 
calls  for  a  knowledge  of  life,  and  in 
proportion  to  its  depth  and  fullness, 
a  philosophy  of  life.  In  no  other  way, 
indeed,  can  the  critic's  individuality 
achieve  outline,  and  the  body  of  his 
work  attain  coherence. 

Obviously,  therefore,  that  general 
culture  which  is  a  prerequisite  to  any 
philosophy  of  life  is  a  necessity  of  his 
equipment,  without  which  he  can  nei- 
ther estimate  his  subject  aright  nor  sig- 
nificantly enrich  his  treatment  to  the 
end  of  producing  what  constitutes  lit- 
erature in  its  turn  —  an  ideal  which,  as 

21 


CRITICISM 

I  have  already  intimated,  exhibits  the 
insufficiency  of  what  is  known  as  ex- 
pert criticism.  And  of  this  general  cul- 
ture, I  should  call  the  chief  constitu- 
ents history,  aesthetics,  and  philosophy. 
*The  most  profitable  thing  in  the  world 
for  the  institution  of  human  life  is  his- 
tory,' says  Froissart;  and  the  impor- 
tance of  history  to  any  criticism  which 
envisages  life  as  well  as  art  and  let- 
ters, would  need  no  more  than  mention 
were  it  not  in  fact  so  frequently  and  so 
generally  overlooked  by  those  who  un- 
consciously or  explicitly  take  the  bel- 
letristic  or  purely  aesthetic  view  of 
criticism.  Since  Taine  such  a  view 
seems  curiously  antiquated.  Evidently 
however  it  underlies  much  current  prac- 
tice, which  appears  to  assume  that  cur- 
rent critical  material  is  the  product  of 
spontaneous  generation  and  that,  ac- 
cordingly, even  its  direct  ancestry,  as 
well  as  its  ancestral  influences,  is  negli- 

22 


EQUIPMENT 

gible.  And  the  same  view  is  apparently 
held,  not  only  in  the  class-room,  but  in 
what  we  may  call  professional  circles, 
where  both  reasoning  and  research  are 
so  often  strictly  confined  within  the 
rigid  limits  of  the  special  branch  of 
study  pursued  or  expounded. 

Art  and  letters  are  nevertheless 
neither  fortuitous  phenomena,  on  the 
one  hand,  to  be  savored  and  tested 
merely  by  the  sharp  senses  of  the  im- 
pressionist, nor,  on  the  other,  technical 
variants  of  an  isolated  evolution.  Po- 
etry for  instance  is  neither  pure  music 
nor  pure  prosody.  Even  that  of  Blake 
or  Whitman  cannot  be  correctly  judged 
■  by  the  senses  unilluminated  by  the  light 
that  history  sheds  on  its  conformity  to 
or  deflection  from  the  ideal  laws  to 
which  legitimately  it  is  responsible;  a 
fortiori,  of  course,  in  the  case  of  poetry 
that  is  truly  expressive  instead  of  melo- 
diously or  otherwise  explosive.  But  in 
23 


CRITICISM 

general  the  criticism  that  either  cor- 
rectly estimates  or  successfully  contrib- 
utes to  art  or  letters  rests  firmly  on 
that  large  and  luminous  view  of  life  and 
the  world  which  alone  furnishes  an  ad- 
equately flexible  standard  for  measuring 
whatever  relates  to  life  and  the  world, 
and  which  is  itself  furnished  by  history 
alone.  Of  course  no  one  would  pre- 
scribe a  minute  knowledge  of  the  Car- 
thaginian constitution  any  more  than 
of  the  reasons  for  the  disappearance  of 
the  digamma  as  a  necessity  of  critical 
equipment,  but  a  lack  of  interest  in  the 
distinctly  cultural  chapters  of  the  book 
of  human  life  witnesses,  one  would 
think,  a  lack  of  even  that  spirit  of  cu- 
riosity characteristic  of  the  dilettante 
himself  and  naturally  leading  him  be- 
yond the  strict  confines  of  belles-lettres 
and  pure  aesthetics. 

^Esthetics,  however,  in  their  broader 

aspect  may  be  commended  to  even  the 

24 


EQUIPMENT 

purely  literary  critic  as  an  important 
element  of  his  ideal  equipment  at  the 
present  day.  They  constitute  an  ele- 
ment of  cognate  culture  which  imposes 
itself  more  and  more,  and  literary  crit- 
ics who  deem  them  negligible  are  no 
doubt  becoming  fewer  and  fewer.  No 
one  could  maintain  their  parity  with 
history  as  such  an  element,  I  think, 
for  the  reason  that  they  deal  with  a 
more  restricted  field.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  extent  rather  than  the  par- 
ticularity of  this  field  is  now  increas- 
ingly perceived,  and  the  prodigious  part 
played  by  the  plastic  in  the  history  of 
human  expression  is  receiving  a  recog- 
nition long  overdue.  I  remember  once, 
many  years  ago,  a  number  of  us  were 
wasting  time  in  playing  one  of  those 
games  dear  to  the  desultory,  consist- 
ing in  making  lists  of  the  world's  great- 
est men.  We  had  discussed  and  ac- 
credited perhaps  a  dozen,  when  Homer 

25 


CRITICISM 

Martin,  being  asked  to  contribute,  ex- 
claimed, 'Well,  I  think  it's  about  time 
to  put  in  an  artist  or  two.'  The  list 
was  revised,  but  less  radically,  I  imag- 
ine, than  it  would  be  to-day. 

In  France  to-day  no  literary  critic 
with  a  tithe  of  Sainte-Beuve's  author- 
ity would  be  likely  to  incur  the  genuine 
compassion  expressed  for  Sainte-Beuve 
when  he  ventured  to  talk  about  art 
by  the  Goncourts  in  their  candid  Di- 
ary. In  England  such  a  critic  as  Pater 
owes  his  reputation  quite  as  much  prob- 
ably to  his  sense  for  the  plastic  as  to  his 
Platonism.  In  Germany  doubtless  the 
importance  of  aesthetics  as  a  constitu- 
ent of  general  culture  has  been  gen- 
erally felt  since  Lessing's  time,  and 
could  hardly  fail  of  universal  recogni- 
tion in  the  shadow  of  Goethe.  With  us 
in  America,  progress  in  this  very  vital 
respect   has   notoriously   been    slower, 

and  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find  literary 
26 


EQUIPMENT 

critics  who  evince,  or  who  even  profess, 
an  ignorance  of  art  that  is  more  or  less 
consciously  considered  by  them  a  mark 
of  more  concentrated  literary  serious- 
ness. And  if  an  Academy  of  Arts  and 
Letters  should  contribute  in  the  least 
to  remove  this  misconception  it  would 
disclose  one  raison-d'etre  and  justify 
its  modest  pretensions.  For  so  far  as 
criticism  is  concerned  with  the  aes- 
thetic element,  the  element  of  beauty, 
in  literature,  a  knowledge  of  aesthetic 
history  and  philosophy,  theory  and 
practice,  serves  it  with  almost  self- 
evident  pertinence. 

The  principles  of  art  and  letters  being 
largely  identical,  aesthetic  knowledge  in 
the  discussion  of  belles-lettres  answers 
very  much  the  purpose  of  a  diagram  in 
a  demonstration.  In  virtue  of  it  the 
critic  may  transpose  his  theme  into  a 
plastic  key,  as  it  were,  and  thus  get 
nearer  to  its  essential  artistic  quality 
27 


CRITICISM 

by  looking  beyond  the  limitations  of  its 
proper  technic.  Similarly  useful  the 
art  critic  of  any  distinction  has  always 
found  literary  culture,  and  if  this  has 
led  him  sometimes  to  overdo  the  mat- 
ter, it  has  been  due  not  to  his  knowl- 
edge of  literature  but  to  his  ignorance 
of  art.  But  this  ignorance  is  mea- 
surably as  incapacitating  to  the  critic 
of  belles-lettres,  whose  ability  to  deal 
with  the  plastic  that  can  only  be  felt 
must  manifestly  be  immensely  aided 
by  an  education  in  the  plastic  that  can 
be  seen  as  well.  And  for  the  critic  of 
thought  as  well  as  of  expression,  the 
critic  who  deals  with  the  relations  of 
letters  to  life,  the  culture  that  is  artistic 
as  well  as  literary  has  the  value  inher- 
ent in  acquaintance  with  the  history 
and  practice  of  one  of  the  most  influ- 
ential, inspiring,  and  illuminating  fields 
that  the  human  spirit  has  cultivated 

almost  from  the  beginning  of  time. 

28 


EQUIPMENT 

Finally,  since  nothing  in  the  way  of 
cognate  knowledge  comes  amiss  in  the 
culture  pertinent  to  criticism,  to  the 
history  and  aesthetics  of  the  critic's 
equipment,  a  tincture  at  least  of  philo- 
sophic training  may  be  timidly  pre- 
scribed. I  am  quite  aware  that  this 
must  be  sparingly  cultivated.  Its  pe- 
culiar peril  is  pedantry.  Drenched  in 
philosophy,  the  critical  faculty  is  al- 
most certain  to  drown.  This  faculty, 
when  genuine,  however,  is  so  consti- 
tuted that  a  smattering  of  philosophy 
makes  a  saturated  solution  for  it. 
And  such  training  in  the  realm  of  ab- 
stract thought,  as  some  practice  with  its 
terms  and  processes  involves,  will  help 
the  critic  in  his  thinking  —  which  is, 
after  all,  his  main  business.  It  will 
serve  to  coordinate  his  analysis,  and  it 
will  purge  his  constructive  expression 
of  incongruities,  even  if  it  endue  this 
with  no  greater  cogency  and  supply  it 
29 


CRITICISM 

with  no  additional  energy.  For  crit- 
icism, dealing,  as  I  have  said,  with  the 
abstract,  —  though  with  the  abstract 
held  as  closely  to  the  concrete  as  a 
translation  to  the  original,  —  the  gram- 
mar of  the  abstract  is  as  useful  as  its 
rhetoric  is  in  general  superfluous.  What 
it  needs  is  the  ability  to  'play  freely' 
with  such  elements  of  the  abstract  as  it 
can  use,  avoiding  sedulously  the  while 
contagion  from  the  petrifaction  of  its 
systems  in  which  the  concrete,  which 
is  the  constant  preoccupation  of  criti- 
cism, disappears  from  view.  Duly  on 
his  guard  against  its  insidious  attrac- 
tions, the  critic  may  surely  justify  him- 
self in  his  endeavor  to  make  the  ab- 
stract serve  him  by  such  examples  as 
Aristotle,  Longinus,  Goethe,  and  Cole- 
ridge, not  to  mention  Arnold,  who  with 
less  training  in  it  would  have  attacked 
it  with  far  less  success.  It  is  at  all 
events,  in  whatever  degree  it  may  prove 
30 


EQUIPMENT 

adequate  or  become  excessive,  thor- 
oughly pertinent  to  a  matter  so  ex- 
phcitly  involving  the  discussion  of  prin- 
ciples as  well  as  of  data. 

Examples  in  abundance  fortify  the 
inherent  reasonableness  of  this  general 
claim  for  what  I  have  called  cognate 
culture.  The  'cases'  confirm  the  the- 
ory, which  of  course  otherwise  they 
would  confute.  The  three  great  mod- 
ern critics  of  France  show  each  in  his 
own  way  the  value  of  culture  in  the  crit- 
ical equipment.  Sainte-Beuve's  crit- 
icism is  what  it  is  largely  because  of 
his  saturation  with  literature  in  gen- 
eral, not  belles-lettres  exclusively;  of 
the  sensitiveness  and  severity  of  taste 
thus  acquired,  or  at  least  thus  certified 
and  invigorated;  and  of  the  instinctive 
ease,  and  almost  scientific  precision, 
with  which  he  was  thus  enabled  to  ap- 
ply in  his  own  art  that  comparative 
method  already  established  in  the  sci- 
31 


CRITICISM 

entific  study  of  linguistics  and  literary 
history.  Thus,  too,  he  was  enabled  to 
add  perhaps  his  most  distinguished 
contribution  to  the  practice  of  criticism 
—  the  study,  sympathetic  but  objec- 
tive, of  character,  namely,  the  person- 
ality of  the  author  which  informs  and 
explains  his  productions,  and  in  which 
his  productions  inevitably  inhere  so 
far  as  they  have  any  synthetic  value, 
or  significant  purpose.  Such  study 
can  only  be  pursued  in  the  light  of 
standards  furnished  by  the  sifting  of 
innumerable  examples,  and  illustrated 
in  the  work  of  the  surviving  fittest. 
Moreover  the  range  within  which 
Sainte-Beuve's  exquisite  critical  fac- 
ulty operated  so  felicitously  acquired 
an  extension  of  dignity  and  authorita- 
tlveness,  quite  beyond  the  reach  of 
belles-lettres.  In  the  production  of  his 
massive  and  monumental  history  of 
Port  Royal.  His  culture,  in  a  word, 
32 


EQUIPMENT 

as  well  as  his  native  bent,  was  such  as 
considerably  to  obscure  the  significance 
of  his  having  'failed'  in  early  experi- 
mentation as  a  novelist  and  as  a 
poet! 

How  predominant  the  strain  of  schol- 
arship and  philosophic  training  is  in 
the  criticism  of  Taine  it  is  superfluous 
to  point  out;  the  belletristic  fanatics 
have  been  so  tireless  in  its  disparage- 
ment that  at  the  present  time,  prob- 
ably, his  chief  quality  is  popularly  es- 
teemed his  characteristic  defect.  It  is 
true  that,  though  serving  him  splen- 
didly, his  philosophy  on  occasion  dom- 
inates him  rather  despotically.  After 
all,  the  critical  faculty  should  preside 
in  the  critic's  reflection,  and  not  abdi- 
cate in  favor  of  system  —  should  keep 
on  weighing  and  judging,  however  di- 
rected by  philosophy  and  erudition, 
and  not  lapse  into  advocacy  or  admin- 
istration. Poise,  one  of  the  chief  crit- 
33 


CRITICISM 

ical  requirements,  settles  into  immo- 
bility in  Taine.  His  point  of  view  is  so 
systematically  applied  that  his  crit- 
icism certainly,  as  I  think  his  history 
also,  is  colored  by  it.  But  the  colors 
are  brilliant  in  any  case,  and  if  now  and 
then  untrue,  are  sure  of  correction  by 
contemporary  lenses,  which  are  rather 
discreditably  adjusted  to  depreciate  his 
superb  achievements  —  at  least  among 
English  readers  for  whom  he  has  done 
so  much.  And  the  apt  consideration 
for  our  present  purpose  is  the  notable 
service  which  his  philosophy  and  his- 
tory have  rendered  a  remarkable  body 
of  criticism,  both  aesthetic  and  literary; 
not  the  occasional  way  in  which  they 
invalidate  its  conclusiveness.  Almost 
all  histories  of  English  literature  are 
inconsecutive  and  desultory,  or  else 
congested  and  casual,  compared  with 
Taine's  great  work  —  whose  misappre- 
ciations,  as  I  say,  correct  themselves 
34 


EQUIPMENT 

for  us,  but  whose  stimulus  remains  ex- 
haustless. 

And  one  may  say  that  he  has  es- 
tabhshed  the  criticism  of  art  on  its 
present  basis.  The  Lectures  and  the 
Travels  in  Italy  first  vitally  connected 
art  with  life,  and  demonstrated  its  true 
title  by  recognizing  it  as  an  expression 
rather  than  an  exercise.  Certainly 
the  latter  phase  demands  interpreta- 
tive treatment  also,  and  it  would  be 
idle  to  ignore  in  Taine  a  lack  of  the 
sensuous  sensitiveness  that  gives  to 
Fromentin's  slender  volume  so  much 
more  than  a  purely  technical  interest; 
just  as  it  would  be  to  look  in  him  for  the 
exquisite  appreciation  of  personal  idio- 
syncrasy possessed  by  Sainte-Beuve. 
But  in  his  treatment  of  art  as  well  as 
of  literature,  the  philosophic  structure 
around  which  he  masses  and  distributes 
his  detail  is  of  a  stability  and  signif- 
icance of  design  that  amply  atones  for 
3S 


CRITICISM 

the  misapplication  or  misunderstand- 
ing of  some  of  the  detail  itself. 

Another  instance  of  the  value  of  cul- 
ture in  fields  outside  strictly  literary 
and  aesthetic  confines,  though,  as  I  am 
contending,  strictly  cognate  to  them,  is 
furnished  by  the  Essays  of  Edmond 
Scherer.  To  the  comparative  personal 
and  circumstantial  judgments  of  Sainte- 
Beuve,  to  the  systematic  historical  and 
evolutionary  exposition  of  Taine,  there 
succeeded  in  Scherer  the  point  of  view 
suggested  rather  than  defined  in  the 
statement  of  Rod  to  the  effect  that 
Scherer  judged  not  with  his  intelligence 
but  with  his  character.  Rod  meant  his 
epigram  as  a  eulogy.  Professor  Saints- 
bury  esteems  it  a  betrayal,  his  own 
theory  of  criticism  being  of  the  art- 
for-art*s-sake  order,  finding  its  jus- 
tification in  that  'it  helps  the  ear  to 
listen  when  the  horns  of  Elf-land  blow,* 

and  denying  to  it,  or  to  what  he  calls 
36 


EQUIPMENT 

'pure  literature/  any  but  hedonistic 
sanctions  —  piquant  philosophy,  it  has 
been  observed,  for  a  connoisseur  with- 
out a  palate. 

Character  at  all  events  forms  a  sig- 
nal element  in  the  judgments  of  Sche- 
rer's  austere  and  elevated  criticism,  and 
if  it  made  him  exacting  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  frivolous,  the  irresponsi- 
ble, and  the  insincere,  and  limited  his 
responsiveness  to  the  comic  spirit,  as 
it  certainly  did  in  the  case  of  Moliere, 
it  undoubtedly  made  his  reprehensions 
significant  and  his  admirations  author- 
itative. He  began  his  career  as  a  pas- 
ieur,  and  though  he  gradually  reached 
an  agnostic  position  in  theology,  he 
had  had  an  experience  in  itself  a  guar- 
antee, in  a  mind  of  his  intelligence,  of 
spirituality  and  high  seriousness  in 
dealing  with  literary  subjects,  and  as 
absent  from  Sainte-Beuve's  objectivity 
as  from  Taine's  materialistic  deter- 
37 


CRITICISM 

minism.  Without  Renan's  sinuous 
charm  and  truly  cathoUc  openminded- 
ness,  this  Protestant-trained  theologian 
turned  critic  brings  to  criticism  not 
merely  the  sinews  of  spiritual  central- 
ity  and  personal  independence,  but  a 
philosophic  depth  and  expertness  in 
reasoning  that  set  him  quite  apart 
from  his  congeners,  and  establish  for 
him  a  unique  position  in  French  liter- 
ature. Criticism  has  never  reached  a 
higher  plane  in  literature  conceived 
as,  in  Carlyle's  words,  'the  Thought 
of  Thinking  Souls';  and  it  holds  it  not 
only  in  virtue  of  a  native  ideality  and 
a  perceptive  penetration  that  atone  in 
soundness  for  whatever  they  may  lack 
in  plasticity,  but  also,  it  is  not  to  be 
doubted,  in  virtue  of  the  severe  and 
ratiocinative  culture  for  which  Geneva 
has  stood  for  centuries. 


38 


Ill 

CRITERION 

ITS  equipment  established,  criticism 
calls  for  a  criterion.  Sainte-Beuve 
says  somewhere  that  our  liking  any- 
thing is  not  enough,  that  it  is  necessary 
to  know  further  whether  we  are  right 
in  liking  it  —  one  of  his  many  utter- 
ances that  show  how  thoroughly  and 
in  what  classic  spirit  he  later  ration- 
alized his  early  romanticism. 

The  remark  judges  in  advance  the 
current  critical  impressionism.  It  in- 
volves more  than  the  implication  of 
Mr.  Vedder's  well-known  retort  to  the 
time-honored  philistine  boast,  *I  know 
nothing  of  art,  but  I  know  what  I 
like':  'So  do  the  beasts  of  the  field.' 
Critical  impressionism,  intelligent  and 
scholarly,  such  as  that  illustrated  and 
39 


CRITICISM 

advocated  by  M.  Jules  Lemaitre  and 
M.  Anatole  France,  for  example, 
though  it  may,  I  think,  be  strictly  de- 
fined as  appetite,  has  certainly  nothing 
gross  about  it,  but,  contrariwise,  every- 
thing that  is  refined.  Its  position  is,  in 
fact,  that  soundness  of  criticism  varies 
directly  with  the  fastidiousness  of  the 
critic,  and  that  consequently  this  fas- 
tidiousness cannot  be  too  highly  culti- 
vated, since  it  is  the  court  of  final  juris- 
diction. It  is,  however,  a  court  that 
resembles  rather  a  star  chamber  in  hav- 
ing the  peculiarity  of  giving  no  reasons 
for  its  decisions.  It  has,  therefore,  at 
the  outset  an  obvious  disadvantage  in 
the  impossibility  of  validating  its  de- 
cisions for  the  acceptance  of  others. 
So  far  as  this  acceptance  is  concerned, 
it  can  only  say,  *If  you  are  as  well  en- 
dowed with  taste,  native  and  acquired, 
as  I  am,  the  chances  are  that  you  will 

feel  in  the  same  way.' 
40 


CRITERION 

But  it  is  of  the  tolerant  essence  of 
impressionism  to  acknowledge  that 
there  is  no  certainty  about  the  matter. 
And,  in  truth,  the  material  to  be  judged 
is  too  multifarious  for  the  criterion  of 
taste.  Matthew  Arnold's  measure  of  a 
successful  translation:  that  is,  the  de- 
gree in  which  it  produces  the  same  ef- 
fect as  the  original  to  a  sense  compe- 
tent to  appreciate  the  original,  is  an 
instance  of  a  sensible  appeal  to  taste: 
first,  because  the  question  is  compara- 
tively simple;  and  secondly,  because  in 
the  circumstances  there  can  be  no  other 
arbiter.  But  such  instances  are  rare, 
and  the  very  fact  that  so  much  mat- 
ter for  criticism  still  remains  matter  of 
controversy  proves  the  proverb  that 
tastes  differ  and  the  corollary  that 
there  is  no  use  in  disputing  about  them. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  M.  France 
would  find  M.  Lemaitre's  plays  and 
stories  insipid,  and  quite  certain  that  M. 
41 


CRITICISM 

Lemaitre  would  shrink  from  the  strain 
of  salacity  in  M.  France's  romance. 
High  differentiation  and  the  acme  of 
aristocratic  fastidiousness,  which  both 
of  these  critics  illustrate,  manifestly 
do  not  serve  to  unify  their  taste. 
There  is  no  universal  taste.  And  crit- 
icism to  be  convincing  must  appeal  to 
some  accepted  standard.  And  the  aim 
of  criticism  is  conviction.  Otherwise 
actuated  it  must  be  pursued  on  the  art- 
for-art  theory,  which,  in  its  case  at 
least,  would  involve  a  loss  of  identity. 
Recording  the  adventures  of  one's 
soul  among  masterpieces,  which  is  M. 
France's  variant  of  Eugene  Veron's 
definition  of  landscape,  —  the  first  for- 
mal appearance  of  the  idea,  I  think,  — 
*  painting  one's  emotions  in  the  pres- 
ence of  nature,'  must  be  a  purely  self- 
regardant  exercise  unless  the  reader 
has  an  answering  soul  and  can  himself 
authenticate  the  masterpieces. 
42 


CRITERION 

Feeling  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  the 
impressionist's  irresponsibiUty,  the  late 
Ferdinand  Brunetiere  undertook  a  cam- 
paign in  opposition  to  it.  He  began 
it,  if  I  remember  aright,  in  his  lectures 
in  this  country  nearly  twenty  years  ago. 
These  lectures,  however,  and  the  course 
of  polemic  which  followed  them  ex- 
celled particularly,  I  think,  in  attack. 
They  contained  some  very  effective 
destructive  criticism  of  mere  personal 
preference,  no  matter  whose,  as  a  final 
critical  criterion.  Constructively,  on 
the  other  hand,  Brunetiere  was  less 
conclusive.  In  a  positive  way  he  had 
nothing  to  offer  but  a  defense  of  aca- 
demic standards.  He  harked  back  to 
the  classic  canon  —  that  canon  in  ac- 
cordance with  which  were  produced 
those  works  designed,  as  Stendhal  says, 
'to  give  the  utmost  possible  pleasure  to 
our  great-grandfathers.' 

The  case  might  perhaps  have  been 
43 


CRITICISM 

better  stated.  Brunetiere  was  devoted 
to  the  noble  French  Uterature  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  august  had 
no  doubt  a  special  attraction  for  the 
self-made  scholar.  Out  of  reach  the 
aristocratic  always  looks  its  best  — 
the  less  attainable  the  more  admirable. 
But  though  he  became  a  distinguished 
scholar,  Brunetiere  retained  the  tem- 
perament of  the  schoolmaster,  which 
was  either  native  to  him  or  the  result 
of  belated  acquaintance,  however  thor- 
ough, with  what  French  impatience 
calls  the  dejd-vu.  It  was  because  he 
had  so  expHcitly  learned  that  he 
wished   always  to  teach. 

Now  there  is  nothing  strictly  to 
teach  save  the  consecrated  and  the 
canonical,  whereas  criticism  is  a  live 
art,  and  contemporaneousness  is  of  its 
essence.  Once  codified,  it  releases  the 
genuine  critic  to  conceive  new  combi- 
nations,—  the  'new  duties'  taught  by 
44 


CRITERION 

'new  occasions,'  —  and  becomes  itself 
either  elementary  or  obsolete.  It  is  im- 
portant to  know  which,  of  course,  as 
Wordsworth's  failure  successfully  to  re- 
cast the  catalogue  of  the  poetic  genres, 
noted  by  Arnold,  piquantly  attests. 
Moreover  in  his  devotion  to  the  seven- 
teenth, Brunetiere  was  blind  to  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  —  as  well  as,  by  the 
way,  heedless  of  Voltaire's  warning  that 
the  only  bad  style  is  the  style  ennuyeux; 
his  style  alone  devitalized  his  polemic 
in  favor  of  prescription.  Finally,  in- 
stead of  winning  adherents  for  him, 
this  ardent  advocacy  of  authority  took 
despotic  possession  of  his  entire  mind 
and  gathered  him  to  the  bosom  of  re- 
ligious and  political  reaction. 

Whatever  our  view  of  criticism,  it  is 
impossible  at  the  present  day  to  con- 
ceive it  as  formula,  and  the  rigidity  of 
rules  of  taste  is  less  acceptable  than  the 
license  permitted  under  the  reign  of 
45 


CRITICISM 

taste  unregulated,  however  irregular, 
individual,  and  irresponsible.  In  spite 
of  the  logical  weakness  of  the  impres- 
sionist theory,  it  is  to  be  observed  that 
a  high  level  of  taste,  uniform  enough 
to  constitute  a  very  serviceable  ar- 
biter, at  least  in  circumstances  at  all 
elementary,  is  practically  attainable; 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  is,  in  France  at 
least,  often  attained.  For  in  criticism 
as  elsewhere  it  is  true  that  we  rest 
finally  upon  instinct,  and  faith  under- 
lies reason.  The  impressionist  may 
properly  remind  us  that  all  proof,  even 
Euclidian,  proceeds  upon  postulates. 

The  postulates  of  criticism,  however, 
are  apt  unsatisfactorily  to  differ  from 
those  of  mathematics  in  being  propo- 
sitions taken  for  granted  rather  than 
self-evident.  The  distinction  is  radi- 
cal. It  is  not  the  fact  that  everybody 
is  agreed  about  them  that  gives  axioms 

their  validity,  but  their  self-evidence. 

46 


CRITERION 

Postulates  that  depend  on  the  sanc- 
tion of  universal  agreement,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  conventions.  Universal 
agreement  may  be  brought  about  in  a 
dozen  ways.  It  may  be  imposed  by 
authority,  as  in  the  case  of  classic  criti- 
cism, or  it  may  develop  insensibly,  illog- 
ically,  and  indefensibly;  it  may  derive, 
not  from  truth  but  from  tradition,  or  it 
may  certainly  be  the  result  of  general 
reaction,  and  promptly  crystallize  with 
a  rigidity  equivalent  to  that  from  which 
it  is  just  emancipated.  Examples  would 
be  superfluous.  The  conventions  of 
romanticism,  realism,  impressionism, 
symbolism,  or  what-not,  are  no  more 
intrinsically  valid  than  those  under- 
lying the  criticism  of  academic  pre- 
scription, as  is  attested  by  this  varia- 
bility of  the  universal  agreement  which 
is  their  sanction. 

The  true  postulates  of  criticism  have 
hardly  varied  since  Aristotle's  day,  and 
47 


CRITICISM 

impressionism  itself,  in  imagining  its 
own  an  advance  upon  them,  would  be 
in  peril  of  fatuity.  Yet  even  sound  in- 
tuitions, fundamental  as  they  may  be, 
do  not  take  us  very  far.  Pascal,  who 
though  one  of  the  greatest  of  reason- 
ers  is  always  girding  at  reason,  was 
obliged  to  admit  that  it  does  the  over- 
whelming bulk  of  the  work.  'Would 
to  God,'  he  exclaims,  *  that  we  had  never 
any  need  of  it,  and  knew  everything  by 
instinct  and  sentiment!  But  nature 
has  refused  us  this  blessing;  she  has,  on 
the  contrary,  given  us  but  very  little 
knowledge  of  this  kind,  and  all  other 
knowledge  can  only  be  acquired  by  rea- 
soning.' But  even  if  intuitions  had  all 
the  importance  claimed  for  them,  it 
would  still  be  true  that  conventions  are 
extremely  likely  to  be  disintegrated  by 
the  mere  lapse  of  time  into  what  every 
one  sees  to  have  been  really  inductions 
from  practice  become  temporarily  and 
48 


CRITERION 

more  or  less  fortuitously  general,  and 
not  genuine  intuitive  postulates  at  all. 
Still  clearer  is  the  conventionality  of 
the  systems  erected  upon  them,  beneath 
which  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  cus- 
tomarily lie  buried.  All  sorts  of  ec- 
centricity are  incident  to  elaboration, 
of  course,  whether  its  basis  be  sound  or 
unsound. 

So  that,  in  brief,  when  the  impres- 
sionist alleges  that  a  correct  judgment 
of  a  work  of  literature  or  art  depends 
ultimately  upon  feeling,  we  are  quite 
justified  in  requiring  him  to  tell  us  why 
he  feels  as  he  does  about  it.  It  is  not 
enough  for  him  to  say  that  he  is  a  per- 
son of  particularly  sensitive  and  sound 
organization,  and  that  his  feeling,  there- 
fore, has  a  corresponding  finality.  In 
the  first  place,  as  I  have  said,  it  is 
impossible  to  find  in  the  judgments  de- 
rived from  pure  taste  anything  like  the 
uniformity  to  be  found  in  the  equip- 
49 


CRITICISM 

merit  as  regards  taste  of  the  judges 
themselves.  But  for  all  their  fastidi- 
ousness these  judges  are  as  amenable 
as  grosser  spirits  to  the  test  of  reason. 
And  it  is  only  rational  that  the  first 
question  asked  of  them  when  they  ap- 
peal to  the  arbitrament  of  feeling  should 
be:  Ts  your  feeling  the  result  of  direct 
intuitive  perception,  or  of  unconscious 
subscription  to  convention  ?  Your  true 
distinction  from  the  beasts  of  the  field 
surely  should  lie,  not  so  much  in  your 
superior  organization  resulting  in  su- 
perior taste,  as  in  freedom  from  the 
conventional,  to  which  even  in  their 
appetites  the  beasts  of  the  field,  often 
extremely  fastidious  in  this  respect,  are 
nevertheless  notoriously  enslaved.  In 
a  word,  even  if  impressionism  be  philo- 
sophically sound  in  the  impeachment 
of  reason  unsupported  by  intuitive 
taste,  it  cannot  dethrone  reason  as  an 
arbiter  in  favor  of  the  taste  that  is 
so 


CRITERION 

not  intuitive  but  conventional.  The 
true  criterion  of  criticism  therefore  is 
only  to  be  found  in  the  rationalizing  of 
taste. 

This  position  once  reached,  it  is  clear 
that  the  only  way  in  which  the  impres- 
sionist, however  cultivated,  can  be  at 
all  sure  of  the  validity  of  the  feeling  on 
which  he  bases  his  judgment  is  by  the 
exercise  of  his  reasoning  faculty.  Only 
in  this  way  can  he  hope  to  determine 
whether  his  'impression'  originates  in 
a  genuine  personal  perception  of  the 
relations  of  the  object  producing  it  to 
some  self-evident  principle  of  truth  or 
beauty,  or  proceeds  from  habit,  from 
suggestion,  from  the  insensible  pressure 
of  current,  which  is  even  more  potent 
than  classic,  convention.  Absolutely 
certain  of  achieving  this  result,  the 
critic  can  hardly  expect  to  be.  Noth- 
ing is  more  insidious  than  the  con- 
ventional. Civilized  life  is  continually 
SI 


CRITICISM 

paying  it  tribute  in  innumerable  ways. 
Culture  itself,  so  far  as  it  is  uncritical, 
is  perhaps  peculiarly  susceptible  to  it. 
But  the  critic  can  discharge  his  critical 
duty  only  by  approximating  this  cer- 
tainty as  nearly  as  possible,  by  pro- 
cesses of  scrutiny,  comparison,  and  re- 
flection, and  in  general  that  arduous 
but  necessary  and  not  unrewarding 
exercise  of  the  mind  involved  in  the 
checking  of  sensation  by  thought. 

There  is  nothing  truistic  at  the  pres- 
ent time  in  celebrating  the  thinking 
power,  counselling  its  cultivation  and 
advocating  its  application  —  at  least 
within  the  confines  of  criticism  where 
the  sensorium  has  decidedly  supplanted 
it  in  consideration.  Nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  there  anything  recondite  in  so 
doing.  It  is  as  plain  as  it  used  to  be 
remembered  that  it  is  in  'reason'  that 
a  man  is  'noble,'  in  'faculty'  that  he  is 
'infinite,'  in  'apprehension'  that  he  is 
52 


CRITERION 

'like  a  god/  The  importance  of  his 
exquisite  sensitiveness  to  impressions 
is  a  ^oi-^-Shakespearean  discovery.  I 
certainly  do  not  mean  to  belittle  the 
value  of  this  sensitiveness,  in  suggest- 
ing for  criticism  the  advantages  of  its 
control  by  the  thinking  power,  and  in 
noting  the  practical  disappearance  of 
the  latter  from  the  catalogue  of  con- 
temporary prescription.  If  my  topic 
were  not  criticism,  but  performance  in 
the  field  of  American  imaginative  ac- 
tivity, to  belittle  taste  would  at  the 
present  time  be  unpardonable.  The 
need  of  it  is  too  apparent.  The  lack 
of  it  often  cheapens  our  frequent  ex- 
pertness,  ruptures  the  relation  between 
truth  and  beauty,  and  is  responsible 
for  a  monotonous  miscellaneity  that  is 
relieved  less  often  than  we  could  wish 
by  works  of  enduring  interest. 

It  cannot,  however,  be  maintained 
that  the  standard  of  pure  taste  is  a 
53 


CRITICISM 

wholly  adequate  corrective  for  this  con- 
dition even  in  the  field  of  performance. 
At  least  it  has  been  tried,  and  the  re- 
sults have  not  been  completely  satis- 
factory. We  have  in  literature  more 
taste  than  we  had  in  days  when,  per- 
haps, we  had  more  talent.  (I  exclude 
the  domain  of  scholarship  and  its  de- 
pendencies, in  which  we  have  made,  I 
should  suppose,  a  notable  advance.) 
But  the  very  presence  of  taste  has  dem- 
onstrated its  insufficiency.  In  general 
literature,  indeed,  if  its  presence  has 
been  marked,  its  effect  is  not  very  trace- 
able, because  it  has  been  mainly  exhib- 
ited in  technic.  It  can't  be  said,  I 
think,  to  have  greatly  affected  the  sub- 
stance of  our  literary  production.  In 
two  of  the  arts,  however,  taste  has  long 
had  full  swing  with  us  —  the  arts,  I 
mean,  of  architecture  and  sculpture; 
and  the  appreciation  it  has  met  with  in 
these  is,  though  general,  not  rarely  of 
54 


CRITERION 

the  kind  that  confuses  the  merits  of  the 
decorative  with  those  of  the  monumen- 
tal, and  the  virtues  of  adaptation  with 
those  of  design.  A  rational  instead  of  a 
purely  susceptible  spirit,  dictating  con- 
structive rather  than  merely  appreci- 
ative and  assimilative  activity,  might 
have  been  more  richly  rewarded  in  these 
fields  —  might  even  have  resulted  in 
superior  taste. 

In  the  restricted  field  of  criticism,  at 
all  events,  the  irresponsibility  of  pure 
temperament  seems  currently  so  popu- 
lar as  to  imply  a  general  belief  that 
reasoning  in  criticism  died  with  Macau- 
lay  and  is  as  defunct  as  Johnson,  hav- 
ing given  place  to  a  personal  disposition 
which  perhaps  discounts  its  prejudices 
but  certainly  caresses  its  predilections 
as  warrant  of  'insight'  and  *  sympathy.* 
Yet  our  few  star  examples  in  current 
criticism  are  eminently  critics  who  give 
reasons  for  the  hope  that  is  in  them;  and 
55 


CRITICISM 

certainly  American  literature  has  one 
critic  who  so  definitely  illustrated  the 
value  of  the  thinking  power  in  criticism 
that  he  may  be  said  almost  to  personify 
the  principle  of  critical  ratiocination.  I 
mean  Poe.  Poe's  perversities,  his  cav- 
illing temper,  his  unscrupulousness  in 
praise  if  not  in  blame,  his  personal  irre- 
sponsibility, invalidate  a  great  deal  of 
his  criticism,  to  say  nothing  of  its  dog- 
matic and  mechanical  character.  But 
at  its  best  it  is  the  expression  of  his  al- 
together exceptional  reasoning  faculty. 
His  reasons  were  not  the  result  of  re- 
flection, and  his  ideas  were  often  the 
crotchets  Stedman  called  them;  but  he 
was  eminently  prolific  in  both,  and  his 
handling  of  them  was  expertness  itself. 
His  ratiocination  here  has  the  artistic 
interest  it  had  in  those  of  his  tales  that 
are  based  on  it,  and  that  are  imaginative 
as  mathematics  is  imaginative.  And  his 
dogmas  were  no  more  conventions  than 
56 


CRITERION 

his  conclusions  were  impressions.  His 
criticism  was  equally  removed  from  the 
canonical  and  the  latitudinarian.  If  he 
stated  a  proposition  he  essayed  to  dem- 
onstrate it,  and  if  he  expressed  a  prefer- 
ence he  told  why  he  had  it. 

Poe*s  practice  is,  indeed,  rather  baldly 
ratiocinative  than  simply  rational,  and 
its  felicity  in  his  case  does  not,  it  is  true, 
disguise  its  somewhat  stark,  exclusive, 
and  exaggerated  effect.  I  do  not  cite 
M.  Dupin  as  an  example  of  the  perfect 
critic.  There  is  something  debased  — 
not  to  put  too  fine  a  point  upon  it  — 
in  the  detective  method  wherever  used. 
It  is  not  merely  subtle,  but  serpentine 
—  too  tortuous  and  too  terrene  for  the 
ampler  upper  air  of  examination,  analy- 
sis, and  constructive  comment.  Rea- 
son is  justified  of  her  children,  not  of  her 
caricaturists.  But  if  the  answer  to  the 
question  Why.?  which  I  have  noted 
as  her  essential  monopoly  (since  pre- 
57 


CRITICISM 

scription  precludes  and  impressionism 
scouts  the  inquiry),  be  challenged  as 
an  advantage  to  criticism,  I  think  its 
value  can  be  demonstrated  in  some 
detail. 

The  epicurean  test  of  the  impres- 
sionist, let  me  repeat,  is  of  course  not 
a  standard,  since  what  gives  pleasure  to 
some  gives  none  to  others.  And  some 
standard  is  a  necessary  postulate,  not 
only  of  all  criticism,  but  of  all  discussion 
or  even  discourse.  Without  one,  art 
must  indeed  be  'received  in  silence,'  as 
recommended  by  the  persistently  com- 
municative Whistler.  In  literature  and 
art  there  are,  it  Is  true,  no  longer  any 
statutes,  but  the  common  law  of  prin- 
ciples is  as  applicable  as  ever,  and  it  be- 
hooves criticism  to  interpret  the  cases 
that  come  before  it  in  the  light  of  these. 
Its  function  is  judicial,  and  its  business 
to  weigh  and  reason  rather  than  merely 
to  testify  and  record.  And  if  it  be- 
58 


CRITERION 

longs  in  the  field  of  reason  rather  than 
in  that  of  emotion,  it  must  consider  less 
the  pleasure  that  a  work  of  art  pro- 
duces than  the  worth  of  the  work  itself. 
This  is  a  commonplace  in  ethics,  where 
conduct  is  not  approved  by  its  happy 
result  but  by  its  spiritual  worthiness. 
And  if  art  and  literature  were  felt  to  be 
as  important  as  ethics,  the  same  dis- 
tinction would  doubtless  have  become 
as  universal  in  literary  and  art  criti- 
cism. Which  is  of  course  only  another 
way  of  stating  Sainte-Beuve's  conten- 
tion that  we  need  to  know  whether  we 
are  right  or  not  when  we  are  pleased. 
And  the  only  guide  to  that  knowledge 
—  beyond  the  culture  which,  however 
immensely  it  may  aid  us,  does  not  auto- 
matically produce  conformity  or  secure 
conviction  —  is  the  criterion  of  reason 
applied  to  the  work  of  ascertaining 
value  apart  from  mere  attractiveness. 
The  attractiveness  takes  care  of  itself, 
59 


CRITICISM 

as  happiness  does  when  we  have  done 
our  duty. 

At  all  events,  aside  from  its  superior 
philosophic  satisfactoriness,  thus  indi- 
cated, a  rational  —  rather  than  either 
an  academic  and  authoritative  or  an 
impressionist  and  individual  —  criti- 
cism is  especially  useful,  I  think,  at  the 
present  time,  in  two  important  particu- 
lars. It  is,  in  the  first  place,  especially 
fitted  to  deal  with  the  current  phase  of 
art  and  letters.  Of  this  phase,  I  take 
it,  freedom  and  eclecticism  are  the  main 
traits.  Even  followers  of  tradition  ex- 
ercise the  freest  of  choices,  tradition  it- 
self having  become  too  multifarious  to 
be  followed  en  bloc.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  who  flout  tradition  and  pursue 
the  experimental,  illustrate  naturally 
still  greater  diversity.  Both  must  ul- 
timately appeal  to  the  criterion  of  rea- 
son, for  neither  can  otherwise  justify 
its  practice  and  pretensions.  Prescrip- 
60 


CRITERION 

tion  is  a  practical  ideal  if  it  is  coherent; 
it  loses  its  constituting  sanction  the  mo- 
ment it  offers  a  choice.  And  experi- 
ment attains  success  only  when  through 
proof  it  reaches  demonstration.  In 
either  case  a  criterion  is  ultimately  ad- 
dressed which  is  untrammeled  by  prec- 
edent and  unmoved  by  change;  which  is 
strict  without  rigidity,  and  seeks  the 
law  of  any  performance  within  and  not 
outside  it;  which  demands  no  corre- 
spondence to  any  other  concrete,  but 
only  to  the  appropriate  abstract;  which, 
in  fact,  substitutes  for  a  concrete  ideal 
a  purely  abstract  one  of  intrinsic  ap- 
plicability to  the  matter  in  hand.  It 
exacts  titles,  but  they  may  be  couched 
in  any  form,  or  expressed  in  any  tongue 
but  that  of  irrationality.  No  more  the 
slave  of  schools  than  the  sponsor  of 
whim,  it  does  not  legislate,  but  judges 
performance,  in  its  twofold  aspect  of 
conception  and  execution,  in  accor- 
6i 


CRITICISM 

dance  with  principles  universally  un- 
contested. 

In  the  next  place,  no  other  criterion 
is  competent  to  deal  critically  with  the 
great  question  of  our  day  in  art  and 
letters  alike,  namely,  the  relation  of 
reality  to  the  ideal.  No  other,  I  think, 
can  hope  to  preserve  disentangled  the 
skein  of  polemic  and  fanaticism  in 
which  this  question  tends  constantly  to 
wind  itself  up  into  apparently  inextri- 
cable confusion.  Taste,  surely,  cannot. 
Taste,  quite  comprehensibly,  I  think, 
breathes  a  sigh  of  weariness  whenever 
the  subject  of  'reaUsm'  is  mentioned. 
Nevertheless,  'realism'  is  established, 
entrenched,  and  I  should  say  impreg- 
nable to  the  assaults  of  its  more  radical 
and  numerous  foes,  more  particularly 
those  of  the  art-for-art's-sake  army.  It 
is  too  fundamentally  consonant  with 
the  current  phase  of  the  Time-Spirit  to 
be  in  any  present  danger.  But  it  is 
62 


CRITERION 

only  reason  that  can  reconcile  its  claims 
with  those  of  its  censors  by  showing 
wherein,  and  to  what  extent,  'realism' 
is  really  a  catholic  treatment  of  reality, 
and  not  a  protestant  and  polemic  gos- 
pel of  the  literal. 

Reality  has  become  recognized  as  the 
one  vital  element  of  significant  art,  and 
it  seems  unlikely  that  the  unreal  will 
ever  regain  the  empire  it  once  possessed. 
Its  loss,  at  all  events,  is  not  ours,  since 
it  leaves  us  the  universe.  But  it  is  ob- 
vious that  'realism'  is  often  in  practice, 
and  not  infrequently  in  conception,  a 
very  imperfect  treatment  of  reality, 
which  indeed  not  rarely  receives  more 
sympathetic  attention  in  the  romantic 
or  even  the  classic  household.  Balzac 
is  a  realist,  and  at  times  the  most  arti- 
ficial of  great  romancers.  George  Sand 
is  a  romanticist,  and  a  very  deep  and 
fundamental  reality  not  rarely  under- 
lies her  superficial  extravagances.  Fun- 
63 


CRITICISM 

damentally,  truth  —  which  is  certainly 
none  other  than  reaUty  —  was  her 
inspiration,  as,  fundamentally,  it  cer- 
tainly was  not  always  Balzac's.  'Re- 
alism' has  made  reality  our  touchstone. 
But  it  is  not  a  talisman  acting  auto- 
matically if  misapplied.  To  mistake 
the  badge  for  the  credentials  of  a  doc- 
trine is  so  frequent  an  error  because  it 
is  irrational,  and  close-thinking,  being 
difficult,  is  exceptional.  Exponents  of 
'realism,'  such  as  that  most  admirable 
of  artists,  Maupassant,  are  extraordina- 
rily apt  in  practice  to  restrict  the  field 
of  reality  till  the  false  proportion  re- 
sults in  a  quintessentially  unreal  effect. 
Every  detail  is  real,  but  the  implication 
of  the  whole  is  fantastic.  Why.?  Be- 
cause the  ideal  is  excluded.  The  an- 
tithesis of  reality  is  not  the  ideal,  but 
the  fantastic. 

This  is,  I  think,  the  most  important 
distinction  to  bear  in  mind  in  consider- 
64 


CRITERION 

ing  the  current  realistic  practice  in  all 
the  arts.  I  refer  of  course  to  what  we 
characterize  as  the  ideal  in  general  — 
not  to  the  particular  ideal  whose  inter- 
penetration  with  the  object  constitutes 
the  object  a  work  of  art  and  measures 
it  as  such.  But  for  that  matter  the 
ideal  in  general  may  be  conceived  as 
having  a  similar  relation  to  reality. 
Since  it  is  a  part  of  the  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, —  of  reality,  that  is  to  say,  —  it 
is  obviously  not  antithetic  to  it.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  fantastic  is  essen- 
tially chaotic  by  definition  though  often 
speciously,  attractively,  and  at  times 
poetically  garbed  in  the  raiment  of  or- 
der —  the  poetry  of  Coleridge  or  the 
compositions  of  Blake,  for  example. 
The  defect  of  this  kind  of  art  is  its  lack 
of  reality,  and  its  consequent  compara- 
tive insignificance.  But  it  is  no  more 
ideal  for  that  reason  than  Lear  or  the 
Venus  of  Melos.  This  is  still  more  ap- 
6S 


CRITICISM 

parent  in  the  less  artistic  example  of 
Hawthorne's  tales,  where  in  general  the 
fantasticality  consists  in  the  garb  rather 
than  the  idea,  and  where  accordingly 
we  can  more  readily  perceive  the  unre- 
ality and  consequent  insignificance,  the 
incongruous  being  more  obvious  in  the 
material  than  in  the  moral  field.  But 
it  is  the  special  business  of  criticism  at 
the  present  time  of  'realistic'  tyranny 
to  avoid  confusing  the  ideal  with  the 
fantastic,  to  avoid  disparagement  of  it 
as  opposed  to  reality,  and  to  disengage 
it  from  elements  that  obscure  without 
invalidating  it. 

Ivafihoe,  for  example,  is  fantastic  his- 
tory, but  the  character  of  the  Templar 
is  a  splendid  instance  of  the  ideal  in- 
spiring, informing,  intensifying,  incon- 
testable reality.  In  Le  Pere  Goriot,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  which  the  environ- 
ment and  atmosphere  are  realistic  to 

the  last  degree,  the  protagonist  is  the 
66 


CRITERION 

mere  personification  of  a  passion.  These 
are,  no  doubt,  subtleties.  But  they  arc 
not  verbal  subtleties.  They  are  insep- 
arable from  the  business  of  criticism. 
And  they  impose  on  it  the  criterion 
of  reason  rather  than  that  of  feeling, 
which  cannot  be  a  standard,  or  that 
of  precedent  and  prescription,  which 
is  outworn. 

Finally,  —  and  if  I  have  hitherto 
elaborated  to  excess,  here  I  need  not 
elaborate  at  all,  —  no  other  than  a  ra- 
tional criterion  so  well  serves  criticism 
in  the  most  important  of  all  its  func- 
tions, that  of  establishing  and  deter- 
mining the  relation  of  art  and  letters 
to  the  life  that  is  their  substance  and 
their  subject  as  well. 


67 


IV 

METHOD 

AND  a  rational  criterion  implies  a 
^  constructive  method.  In  itself 
analysis  reaches  no  conclusion,  which  is 
the  end  and  aim  of  reason.  Invaluable 
as  is  its  service  in  detail,  some  rational 
ideal  must  underlie  its  processes,  and 
if  these  are  to  be  fruitful  they  must  de- 
termine the  relations  of  the  matter  in 
hand  to  this  ideal,  and  even  in  dissec- 
tion contribute  to  the  synthesis  that 
constitutes  the  essence  of  every  work 
of  any  individuality.  The  weak  joint 
in  Sainte-Beuve's  armor  is  his  occa- 
sional tendency  to  rest  in  his  analysis. 
It  is  the  finer  art  to  suggest  the  con- 
clusion rather  than  to  draw  it,  no  doubt, 
but  one  should  at  least  do  that;  and  I 
think    Sainte-Beuve,    in    spite    of   his 


METHOD 

search  for  the  faculte  maitresse  and  his 
anticipation  of  the  race,  the  milieuy  and 
the  moment  theory  so  hard  worked  by 
Taine,  occasionally  fails  to  justify  his 
analysis  in  this  way;  so  that  his  result 
is  both  artistically  and  philosophically 
inconclusive.  Now  and  then  he  pays 
in  this  way  for  his  aversion  to  pedantry 
and  system,  and  the  excessive  disinter- 
estedness of  his  curiosity. 

It  would  certainly  be  pedantry  to  in- 
sist on  truly  constructive  criticism  in 
every  causerie  du  lundi  in  which  a  great 
critic  may  quite  pardonably  vary  his 
more  important  work  with  the  play  for 
which  he  has  a  penchant.  But  on  the 
other  hand  truly  constructive  criticism 
does  not  of  necessity  involve  rigidity. 
It  implies  not  a  system,  but  a  method 
—  to  employ  the  distinction  with  which 
Taine  defended  his  procedure,  but 
which  assuredly  he  more  or  less  con- 
spicuously failed  to  observe.  It  pre- 
69 


CRITICISM 

scribes,  in  every  work  of  criticism,  a 
certain  independence  of  its  subject,  and 
imposes  on  it  the  same  constructive  ob- 
ligations that  it  in  turn  requires  of  its 
theme.  A  work  of  criticism  is  in  fact 
as  much  a  thesis  as  its  theme,  and  the 
same  thematic  treatment  is  to  be  ex- 
acted of  it.  And  considered  in  this  way 
as  a  thesis,  its  unity  is  to  be  secured 
only  by  the  development  in  detail  of 
some  central  conception  preliminarily 
established  and  constantly  referred  to, 
however  arrived  at,  whether  by  intui- 
tion or  analysis.  The  detail  thus  treated 
becomes  truly  contributive  and  con- 
structive in  a  way  open  to  no  other 
method.  We  may  say  indeed  that  all 
criticism  of  moment,  even  impression- 
ist criticism,  has  this  synthetic  aspect 
at  least,  as  otherwise  it  must  lack  even 
the  appearance  of  that  organic  quality 
necessary  to  effectiveness.     And  when 

we  read  some  very  interesting  and  dis- 
70 


METHOD 

tinguished  criticism  —  such  as  the  ag- 
glutinate and  amorphous  essays  of 
Lowell,  for  example  —  and  compare 
it  with  concentric  and  constructive 
work,  —  such  as  par  excellence  that  of 
Arnold,  —  we  can  readily  see  that  its 
failure  in  force  is  one  of  method  as  well 
as  of  faculty. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  constructive 
method  is  peculiarly  liable  to  excess. 
If  the  central  conception  it  is  concerned 
with  is  followed  out  in  detail  without 
the  checks  and  rectifications  of  analy- 
sis —  the  great  verifying  process  —  we 
have  the  partisanship  of  Carlyle,  the 
inelasticity  of  Taine,  the  prescriptive 
formulary  of  Brunetiere.  The  spirit  of 
system  stifles  freedom  of  perception  and 
distorts  detail.  Criticism  becomes  the- 
oretic. And  though  theoretic  criticism 
may  be,  and  in  fact  is  not  unlikely  to  be, 
artistically  effective,  it  is  fatally  un- 
trustworthy, because  it  is  bent  on  illus- 
71 


CRITICISM 

trating  its  theory  in  its  analysis,  instead 
of  merely  verifying  such  features  of  its 
central  conception  as  analysis  will  con- 
firm. Against  such  intuitive  extrava- 
gance as  Carlyle's  the  advantages  of  re- 
markable  insight  may  fairly  be  set  ofif. 
The  academic  prescriptions  of  Brune- 
tierfe,  too,  have  a  distinct  educational 
value  —  the  results  of  a  high-class  lit- 
erary scholiast  are  always  technically 
instructive,  however  lacking  they  may 
be  in  the  freedom  and  impressionability 
sanctioned  by  a  criterion  less  rigid  for 
being  purely  rational,  and  committed 
to  no  body  of  doctrine,  traditional  or 
other. 

It  is,  however,  the  historical  method 
of  criticism  that  chiefly  illustrates  con- 
structive excess.  This  method  has  at 
present  probably  the  centre  of  the 
stage;  and  though  there  is  in  France  a 
distinct  reaction  from  the  supremacy  of 
Taine  and  in  favor  of  Sainte-Beuve's 
72 


METHOD 

sinuous  plasticity,  the  method  itself 
maintains  its  authority.  Taine  was  an 
historian  and  a  philosopher  rather  than 
a  critic,  and  his  criticism  is  accordingly 
not  so  much  criticism  illuminated  by 
history  and  philosophy  as  philosophic 
history.  The  data  of  literature  and  art 
under  his  hand  become  the  'documents' 
of  history,  of  which  in  a  scientific  age 
we  hear  so  much.  His  thesis  once  es- 
tablished, however,  as  historical  rather 
than  literary  or  aesthetic,  too  much  I 
think  can  hardly  be  said  for  his  treat- 
ment. Classification  has  the  advantage 
of  clearing  up  confusion,  and  the  value 
of  a  work  like  the  History  of  English  Lit- 
erature appears  when  one  recognizes  its 
paramount  merit  as  resident  in  the 
larger  scope  and  general  view  of  history 
in  which  of  necessity  purely  individual 
traits  are  to  some  extent  blurred  if  not 
distorted.  These  indeed  may  very  well 
be  left  to  pure  criticism  whose  precise 
73 


CRITICISM 

business  they  are.  But  the  historic 
method  in  pure  criticism  is  held  quite 
independently  of  Taine's  authority. 
Scherer,  for  example,  arguing  against 
*  personal  sensations'  in  criticism,  main- 
tains that  from  the  study  of  a  writer's 
character  and  of  his  period  the  right  un- 
derstanding of  his  work  issues  sponta- 
neously. This  is  excellent  prescription 
for  the  impressionist,  although  Scherer 
doubtless  means  by  *  personal  sensa- 
tions,' personal  judgment  also,  and  thus 
minimizes  or  indeed  obliterates  perhaps 
the  most  essential  element  of  all  in 
criticism,  the  critic's  own  personality. 
Scherer's  practice,  precisely  owing  to  his 
personality,  far  excelled  his  theory,  as 
to  which  Arnold  reminded  him  of  Ma- 
caulay,  who  certainly  knew  his  writers 
and  their  period,  but  in  whose  mind 
a  right  understanding  of  their  works 
occasionally  failed  spontaneously  to 
issue. 

74 


METHOD 

In  fine,  the  historic  method,  great  as 
have  been  its  services  to  criticism  and 
truly  constructive  as  it  is,  has  two  er- 
roneous tendencies.  It  tends  gener- 
ally to  impose  its  historical  theory  on 
the  literary  and  aesthetic  facts,  to  dis- 
cern their  historical  rather  than  their 
essential  character;  and,  as  inelasti- 
cally  applied,  at  all  events,  it  tends 
specifically  to  accept  its  'documents* 
as  final  rather  than  as  the  very  subjects 
of  its  concern.  Taine  furnishes  a  strik- 
ing instance  of  the  latter  practice.  I 
have  never  myself  been  able  to  agree 
with  those  of  his  opponents,  who,  like 
Brunetiere,  rested  in  the  comfortable  as- 
surance that  his  whole  theory  was  over- 
thrown by  the  fact  that  the  ordinary 
Venetian  gondolier  of  the  period  was 
the  product  of  the  influences  that  also 
produced  Tintoretto.  One  might  as 
well  hold  that  immunity  in  some  cases 
is  not  the  result  of  the  vaccine  that 
75 


CRITICISM 

fails  to  take  in  others;  the  causes  of 
such  differences  in  either  physiology  or 
history  being  perhaps,  so  far  as  they 
are  not  obvious,  too  obscure  for  prof- 
itable discussion  compared  with  the 
causes  of  resemblances.  But  from  the 
critical  point  of  view  it  is  a  legitimate 
objection  to  his  rigorous  application 
of  his  method  that  he  is  led  by  it  to 
consider  so  disproportionately  causes, 
which  are  the  proper  subject  of  history, 
rather  than  characteristics ,  which  are 
the  true  subject  of  criticism;  to  deem 
the  business  finished,  so  to  say,  when  it 
is  explained,  and,  comparatively  speak- 
ing, to  eschew  its  estimation. 

As  to  the  other  tendency,  that  of 
imposing  historical  theory  on  critical 
data,  it  is  a  commonplace  that  history 
itself,  which  has  been  luminously  called 
philosophy  teaching  by  examples,  some- 
times suffers  from  the  submergence  of 

its  examples  by  its  philosophy.     In  crit- 
76 


METHOD 

icism  the  result  is  more  serious  because, 
viewed  in  the  same  Hght,  its  'examples' 
have  a  far  more  salient  importance. 
They  are  themselves  differentiated  phil- 
osophically in  a  high  degree,  and  it  is 
correspondingly  difficult  successfully  to 
treat  them  merely  as  pieces  of  some 
vaster  mosaic.  On  large  lines  and  in  an 
elementary  way,  this  may  of  course  be 
usefully  done,  but  the  work  belongs  in 
general  I  think  rather  to  the  class-room 
than  to  the  forum  of  criticism.  In  the 
latter  place  their  traits  call  for  a  treat- 
ment at  once  more  individually  search- 
ing and  more  conformed  to  an  abstract, 
ideal,  independent,  and  rational  stand- 
ard —  for  the  application  to  the  data 
they  furnish  of  the  ideas  they  suggest, 
not  the  theory  they  fit. 

Now,  in  the  true  critical  field  of  in- 
dependent judgment,  however  enlight- 
ened by  culture  and  fortified  by  phil- 
osophic  training,  we   know  very  well 
77 


CRITICISM 

that  theory  means  preconception.  And, 
carried  into  any  detail  of  prescription, 
preconception  is  as  a  matter  of  fact 
constantly  being  confuted  by  perform- 
ance. Divorced  from  the  ideas  proper 
to  each  performance,  reposing  on  a  for- 
mula derived  in  its  turn  from  previous 
performance  become  accepted  and  con- 
secrate, it  is  continually  disconcerted. 
New  schools  with  new  formulae  arise 
as  if  by  some  inherent  law,  precisely 
at  the  apogee  of  old  ones.  And  pre- 
conception, based  as  it  perforce  is  upon 
some  former  crystallization  of  the  di- 
verse and  undulating  elements  of  artis- 
tic expression,  is  logically  inapplicable 
at  any  given  time  —  except  as  it  draws 
its  authority  from  examples  of  perma- 
nent value  and  enduring  appeal,  in 
which  case  no  one  would  think  of  call- 
ing it  preconception  at  all.  It  may 
be  said,  to  be  sure,  that  philosophically 
this  view,  in  excluding  theory,  degrades 
78 


METHOD 

criticism  to  an  altogether  ancillary  sta- 
tion —  the  business  of  merely  furnish- 
ing data  for  an  historical  synthesis. 
But  I  am  disinclined  to  accept  this  im- 
plication until  the  possibility  of  an  his- 
torical synthesis  at  all  comparable  in 
exactness  with  the  critical  determina- 
tion of  the  data  for  it  is  realized  or 
shown  to  be  realizable.  The  monu- 
ment that  Sainte-Beuve's  critical  es- 
says constitute  is,  in  spite  of  their  dis- 
proportionate analysis,  far  otherwise 
considerable  than  the  fascinating  his- 
torical and  evolutionary  framework 
within  which  Taine's  brilliant  synthesis 
so  hypnotizes  our  critical  faculty. 

In  general  effect,  moreover,  Sainte- 
Beuve's  work  is  itself  markedly  syn- 
thetic. What  a  complete  picture  it 
presents,  at  the  same  time  continually 
illustrating  the  truth  that  the  wiser 
business  of  criticism  is  to  occupy  it- 
self with  examples  and  the  ideas  they 
79 


CRITICISM 

evoke,  not  with  theories  and  the  sys- 
tems they  threaten!  For  with  exam- 
ples we  have  the  essential  element  of 
unity  *  given';  it  is  actual,  not  prob- 
lematical. And  —  impersonal  theses  of 
course  aside  —  in  criticism  of  the  larger 
kind  as  distinct  from  mere  reviewing  or 
expert  commentary,  by  examples  we 
mean,  practically,  personalities.  That 
is  to  say,  not  Manfred,  but  Byron,  not 
the  Choral  Symphony,  but  Beethoven. 
I  mean,  naturally,  so  far  as  personality 
is  expressed  in  work,  and  do  not  sug- 
gest invasion  of  the  field  of  biography 
except  to  tact  commensurable  with  that 
which  so  notably  served  Sainte-Beuve. 
There  is  here  ample  scope  for  the  freest 
exercise  of  the  synthetic  method.  For 
personality  is  the  most  concrete  and 
consistent  entity  imaginable,  mysteri- 
ously unifying  the  most  varied  and 
complicated  attributes.     The  solution 

of  this  mystery  is  the  end  of  critical 
80 


METHOD 

research.  To  state  it  is  the  crown  of 
critical  achievement.  The  critic  may 
well  disembarrass  himself  of  theoretical 
apparatus,  augment  and  mobilize  his 
stock  of  ideas,  sharpen  his  faculties  of 
penetration,  and  set  in  order  all  his 
constructive  capacity,  before  attack- 
ing such  a  complex  as  any  personality, 
worthy  of  attention  at  all,  presents  at 
the  very  outset.  If  he  takes  to  pieces 
and  puts  together  again  the  elements 
of  its  composition,  and  in  the  process  or 
in  the  result  conveys  a  correct  judg- 
ment as  well  as  portrait  of  the  orig- 
inal thus  interpreted,  he  has  accom- 
plished the  essentially  critical  part  of 
a  task  demanding  the  exercise  of  all 
his  powers. 

And  I  think  he  will  achieve  the  most 
useful  result  in  following  the  line  I  have 
endeavored  to  trace  in  the  work  of  the 
true  masters  of  this  branch  of  litera- 
ture, the  born  critics  whose  practice 


CRITICISM 

shows  it  to  be  a  distinctive  branch  of 
literature,  having  a  function,  an  equip- 
ment, a  criterion,  and  a  method  of  its 
own.  This  practice  involves,  let  me 
recapitulate,  the  initial  establishment 
of  some  central  conception  of  the  sub- 
ject, gained  from  specific  study  illu- 
minated by  a  general  culture,  followed 
by  an  analysis  of  detail  confirming  or 
modifying  this,  and  concluding  with  a 
synthetic  presentation  of  a  physiog- 
nomy whose  features  are  as  distinct  as 
the  whole  they  compose  —  the  whole 
process  interpenetrated  by  an  estimate 
of  value  based  on  the  standard  of  rea- 
son, judging  the  subject  freely  after 
the  laws  of  the  latter*s  own  projec- 
tion, and  not  by  its  responsiveness  to 
either  individual  whim  or  formulated 
prescription.  This,  at  all  events,  is  the 
ideal  illustrated,  with  more  or  less 
closeness,  by  not  only  such  critics  as 

Sainte-Beuve,  Scherer,  and  Arnold,  but 
82 


METHOD 

such  straightforward  apostles  of  pure 
good  sense  as  Sarcey  and  Emile  Faguet. 
How  the  critic  conducts  his  criticism 
will  of  course  depend  upon  his  own  per- 
sonality, and  the  ranks  of  criticism  con- 
tain perhaps  as  great  a  variety  of  types 
and  individuals  as  is  to  be  found  in  any 
other  field  of  artistic  expression.  For, 
beyond  denial,  criticism  is  itself  an  art; 
and,  as  many  of  its  most  successful 
products  have  been  entitled  *  portraits,* 
sustains  a  closer  analogy  at  its  best 
with  plastic  portraiture  than  with  such 
pursuits  as  history  and  philosophy, 
which  seek  system  through  science. 
One  of  Sainte-Beuve's  studies  is  as  def- 
initely a  portrait  as  one  of  Holbein's; 
and  on  the  other  hand  a  portrait  by 
Sargent,  for  example,  is  only  more  ob- 
viously and  not  more  really,  a  critical 
product  than  are  the  famous  'portraits' 
that  have  interpreted  to  us  the  genera- 
tions of  the  great.  More  exclusively 
83 


CRITICISM 

imaginative  art  the  critic  must,  it  is 
true,  forego.  He  would  wisely,  as  I 
have  contended,  confine  himself  to  por- 
traiture and  eschew  the  panorama.  In 
essaying  a  'School  of  Athens'  he  is 
apt,  rather,  to  produce  a  'Victory  of 
Constantine/  His  direct  aim  is  truth 
even  in  dealing  with  beauty,  forgetting 
which  his  criticism  is  menaced  with 
transmutation  into  the  kind  of  poetry 
that  one  'drops  into'  rather  than  at- 
tains. 

I  have  dwelt  on  the  aesthetic  as  well 
as  the  literary  field  in  the  province  of 
criticism,  and  insisted  on  the  aesthetic 
element  as  well  as  the  historic  in  the 
culture  that  criticism  calls  for,  because 
in  a  very  true  and  fundamental  sense 
art  and  letters  are  one.  They  are  so  at 
all  events  in  so  far  as  the  function  of 
criticism  is  concerned,  and  dictate  to 
this  the  same  practice.  Current  phi- 
losophy may  find  a  pragmatic  sanction 
84 


METHOD 

for  a  pluralistic  universe,  but  in  the 
criticism  of  art,  whether  plastic  or  lit- 
erary, we  are  all  *monists.'  The  end 
of  our  effort  is  a  true  estimate  of  the 
data  encountered  in  the  search  for  that 
beauty  which  from  Plato  to  Keats  has 
been  virtually  identified  with  truth, 
and  the  highest  service  of  criticism  is 
to  secure  that  the  true  and  the  beau- 
tiful, and  not  the  ugly  and  the  false, 
may  in  wider  and  wider  circles  of  ap- 
preciation be  esteemed  to  be  the  good. 


8S 


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